Mental health help in Gilroy, California, call 408-767-2337

Kerstin Helgason, PMHNP
Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, Board Certified

Kerstin is a Board Certified Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner. Psychiatric nurse practitioners are similar to psychiatrists and can prescribe psychiatric medications, diagnose mental health problems, and provide psychotherapy. Kerstin is accepting new patients and sees people ages 13 years and older.

If you're ready to actively engage in treatment to improve your symptoms and your life, let's talk and get started!

Services

Prescribe psychiatric medications for adults and adolescents.
Provide psychiatric evaluation, including diagnosis of mental health conditions and recommendations for options for treatments for adults and adolescents.
- Common problems include: depression, anxiety, including post-partum depression or anxiety, OCD, bipolar, borderline personality disorder, PTSD and complex PTSD.
Provide psychotherapy for adults only.

Quilts, such lovely
metaphors about life,
scraps made whole again.

About Kerstin

Quilt maker and survivor. Mental health care helps people heal emotional wounds by listening to and understanding a person and their life story. Everyone’s story is complex and unique. Composed from a lifetime of experiences, the story is also the source of healing. Understanding a person and their story helps develop effective treatments that can reduce suffering and nurture self compassion, and is my hope for everyone.

I am a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and have a Master of Nursing degree as a PMHNP from Oregon Health and Science University and a Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology degree as a psychotherapist from Pacific University. I completed the Master Psychopharmacology Program, through NEI (Neuroscience Education Institute) and have extensive training in psychopharmacology.

I have worked with people who have complex mental health problems and diverse backgrounds, and everyone is welcome here.

I mainly prescribe psychiatric medication, but also have experience with Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, Mindfulness and Compassion based therapies, and therapies to help people who have experienced childhood abuse or trauma and specialize in working with people with complex PTSD, a form of PTSD that develops from interpersonal abuse or neglect.

For more information, call or email today.

Essential Books for Trauma

The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook by Kristen Neff, PhD and Christopher Germer, PhD

Beginner's guide to mindfulness, shame, grounding, and trauma concepts and techniques.

The Body Keeps the Score, Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD

Explains impact and process of trauma on the body and mind.

Radical Acceptance, Embracing Your Life with the Heart of the Buddha, Tara Brach, PhD

Introduction to the concepts of Radical Acceptance and Mindfulness.

Braving the Wilderness, The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone, Brene Brown, PhD

Shame and how it affects just about everything.

The Healing Metaphor: Quilts, Scraps Made Whole Again.

Most everything about a quilt can be a metaphor for change and healing in a person's life. The pieces of fabric alone each have their own shape and character. Cut from new or old pieces of cloth, scraps of fabric can symbolize parts of ours lives, a feeling we are 'falling to pieces', or of fragmentation or disconnect from ourselves, our experiences or the people around us. The thread is the healing, how simple and slight this fiber is, and yet it binds it all together with a simple loop. The thread is the connection that pulls us together again and binds our souls to our experiences and the people around us. Healing is attending to our hearts, sewing the pieces together, one stitch, one thought, one feeling at a time. Each of the pieces are lovingly drawn together until they form a new, uniquely heart-sewn quilt. Join me in 'quilt making', scraps made whole again.

What will you do with your scraps?

Gilroy Office